


I Come Alive in the Pitch Dark

by limitedpractice



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hypnotism, NSFW, Other, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Sex, and it has to get a bit bad before it gets a lot better, hypno - Freeform, sunder's waiting for you in the dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-04-21 16:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22094062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limitedpractice/pseuds/limitedpractice
Summary: You've been granted access to interview Sunder as part of your research into memory and you're not scared of him. You're not worried that the ruined mnenosurgeon will read your memories and discover how you secretly feel about him so it will be fine, it will all be fine.And if the lights flicker out and you're having trouble focusing that's just because the electrics are rebooting and because you're tired and it's fine, it will all be fine.And if his voice seeps into your skin and melds with your mind and you find yourself standing a little bit too close to him, right up against his door, wondering how his impenetrable cell became unlocked then that's just your imagination playing tricks on you and it will be fine, it all has to be fine.
Relationships: Sunder/Reader, Sunder/You
Comments: 11
Kudos: 111





	I Come Alive in the Pitch Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to [shapeofmetal](https://shapeofmetal.tumblr.com) for opening my eyes to Sunder and for drawing amazing art for this story!! Thank you so much!  
Two drawings are at the end of the story, and the original posts are [here](https://shapeofmetal.tumblr.com/post/189283817584/a-good-friend-of-mine-limited-practice-pointed%20and) and [here](https://shapeofmetal.tumblr.com/post/190009353139/i-come-alive-in-the-pitch-dark)

"After his arrest, Sunder took his skills to the next level: remote mnemosurgery. He can access your memories just by looking at you. He says memories have a flavor—the darker the memory, the sweeter the taste. And the sweetest ones are the ones we lock away. The ones we bury."  
—Froid  
________________________________________________________________________

You're tired.

And tense.

Sitting hunched over a desk working all day without moving has given you a backache, neckache and headache in that order of severity. You should have been stretching and getting up to get regular drinks of water and to make yourself proper meals but you haven’t, and now you’re suffering.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

**>I know what ails you.**

You rub the tight muscles in your neck and don’t respond to the voice of oil and grease that’s oozing out of the corner of the room’s large cell. Neon grey bars run down the length of that high level security cell, which contains a large recharge slab, a neatly stacked pile of empty energon cubes, and a mass murderer.

“You have an interest in the concept of Interior Sin,” you say, reciting from the datapad you’re holding. You know the reports and articles word for word but you want to be certain when you speak to him. And despite knowing that you’re completely safe here and that he can’t hurt you, you’re still not ready to look at him yet.

**>no. I do not.**

Sunder’s black voice is patient bemusement. You’re nothing more than a flicking heartbeat of existence in his long lifespan, and you have nothing new to bring to his alter. He is indulging you with your desire to interview him as part of your research studies on the differences and compatibilities between the form and function of cybertronian and organic memory, and because he’s allowed no-one except you into his room to speak with him he thinks that he’s in control here when he’s not. He is not.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

“You are not. I mean I am not. I mean that we--”

The numbers on your digital wrist monitor tell you that it’s been no more than fifteen seconds since you passed the battery of clearance protocols to step inside his self-contained room and you’re already stumbling. You watch the numbers on the too bright screen tick up and up and up and you press a hand hard into the back of your neck and stand up straight. Your back screams in protest but you ignore it like you ignore so many things about yourself. Your head is still tilted down so you can read from the softly glowing datapad you hold, but you can’t ignore the smudge of rusted red and obsidian shadow that appears at the top of your vision. Sunder is sitting in the middle of his recharge slab and is watching you.

He is watching you.

You hold yourself steady and wait out the agonizing seconds for him to continue. You know you should be the one to continue because this is your interview and you’re in charge here, but- but there is something in the room that shouldn’t be here and you don’t want to speak out of turn and rouse it.

**>interior sin is not a concept. It is a fact.**

This thing is filling up the space around you.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

It’s already been roused.

**>I am a scientist. I am only interested in that which exists and can therefore be examined. Examined and then enjoyed at the greatest of leisure.**

You can feel his flat smile on you. Can practically count the rows of tombstone teeth that march along a mouth that curves almost to the back of his skull. They are waiting for you. Sunder is rust and hunger and decay, a mnemosurgeon ruined by his own dark desires and he is waiting for you. He is waiting for you.

**>I am waiting for you.**

You snap your head up at him and clench the datapad tightly. You didn’t say those words out loud and he can’t read your mind, so how does he know that you…

...

...how does he know...what?

...what words? Thinking about words you don’t...think you said those earlier ones out loud. Or did you? You can’t quite remember. You know you can’t remember but there were words involved and-

Clink. Tink. Clink.

You blink back sweat that’s crawling down your face. “Oh?”

**>to start the interview. You have yet to ask me a single question. Which ones do you have for me?**

You take a deep breath, and make a show of looking around the room as if to examine it while you force yourself to relax. He shouldn’t be affecting you this much so soon. Strips of lights run around the perimeter of the room in unbroken lines to give off a bright and steady glow. Ventilation fans embedded into the room’s ceiling keep the air temperature cool and comfortable, you can see what it is on the display screen next to the door alongside the light switch and the emergency comm channel, but there’s a heat inside the room and inside of you. And it’s rising. It’s seeping into you and curdling into an insidious sickness that you already know that you don’t want treated.

“How long..?”

You stutter and start and stop and your mind wipes to blank and-

\---

\---

**>how long do we have together? Why we have all the time in the world.**

\---

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Your mind reboots in blocks of digital colour.

You blink and try to swallow and fail and try again and fail and try again and this time you manage it but your throat is swollen and the air in the room is dry and it’s painful, and what if something happens to your windpipe next and you can’t breathe what will you do then? What will you do?

Clink. Tink. Clink.

You have such a horrible headache.

**>I know what ails you.**

His voice sounds almost concerned.

**>let me help you.**

You inhale slowly and exhale deeply. You haven’t had much sleep and you’re overworked and dehydrated and those are the reasons for why you feel like you’re starting to come undone from yourself. It’s why your mind feels like it’s coming free of its moorings and your limbs feel heavy, so very heavy. Oh they’re feeling so so heavy. And, come to think of it, wouldn’t it be nice to just sit down for a while. Just for a little while. A short while. But- maybe longer. Just a little while longer. Maybe a lot longer. Maybe Forever.

Why don’t you sit at his feet forever.

You jerk yourself awake as if you’d just been about to fall asleep but then remembered you weren’t supposed to.

You rub your eyes with the heel of your hand and vow to look after yourself better. Right now you need to focus. This is your chance to interview Sunder and you’re not going to ruin it by falling asleep on the job. You’re fine and nothing’s wrong and this is all going according to plan. Your plan, not his. Sunder’s unable to get inside your head with his remote abilities and you’re certainly not going to allow him to affect you using just words.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

God you need some sleep. And what’s that noise? You’ve been hearing it ever since you stepped into his room.

With an even greater show of nonchalance and confident indifference, you stretch up onto your toes and move your arms up over your head and s t r e t c h them, pointing your fingertips towards the ceiling as if you’re just about to touch it. The forced stretch feels painful, but you know it’s going to be good for you. You know it’s what you want. You know that sometimes it has to feel bad before it feels good.

The action has lifted your shirt up and exposed part of your stomach and waist.

The cool air seeps into your overheated skin and makes it tingle. And now you’re feeling better already. Your head is clearer, your muscles are stretched, your core temperature is climbing down and that’s all you needed - a good stretch and some cool air and you’re fine. You're fine and you’re in control here.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

You’re in control here. You’re here. Here. You’re exposed and unguarded and Sunder is watching you. He is watching you. He is watching you and waiting for you.

You look into his face and find that you don’t want to look away. And if you push a little deeper and open up a little wider, you’ll find that you can’t look away.

There’s something about him that’s dissolving into your skin. He’s getting inside your head without getting inside your head. He’s dismantling the oxygen in the room and replacing it with his own airborne poison for you to breathe in and depend upon.

You shift in place and feel your rucked-up shirt sticking to your back.

Sunder leans forward from his sitting position and holds onto a bar of the cell with a hand that promises death. He strokes it. Up and down and up and down his hulking hand moves, up and down and up and down he caresses it like a lover, and up and down and up and down and clink tink clink.

You thought you’d be transfixed with how graceful and gentle those fingers are moving, but you’re not.

You take a step towards him.

Up and down, up and down, up and down and Clink. Tink. Clink.

You thought you might be tempted by curiosity to get a closer look at him, but you’re not.

You take another step towards him.

Sunder angles his head and vents steam from the pipes embedded in his face.

Up and down, up and down, up and down and Clink. Tink. Clink.

You take another step towards him.

Sunder stops stroking the bar and snatches that hand through the bars of his cell and grabs you around the exposed skin of your waist.

You blink in shock and look down and gasp and feel your stomach contract. Why are you so close to him? How did you get here? What did he do to you? This is not good this is not good this is not good.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Sunder gently presses his metal fingers into your waist, each one large and smooth and thrumming with life. He slowly strokes your stomach with his thumb and you involuntarily close your eyes. There is ice in your stomach and heat on your skin and they’re clashing. It feels weird, unnatural.

It feels good to be touched like this.

Your eyes widen in horrible realisation that you’re thinking this, and then widen further at the thought that Sunder also knows this because he knows what ails you. He is red angles and hidden frequencies and compressed pain. He is curved plating and knowing dead eyes and the unelected owner of your secrets.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Your skin erupts with sweat, and you fight with yourself not to yell for help or to struggle in his grip. You can’t defeat him, and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction or yourself the shame. It took you a long time to convince your superiors you were able to interview Sunder alone, and there’s no way you’re backing out of here so quickly. You can handle this. This is nothing. You’re in control here. So take a deep breath and get back to work.

Sunder slides his palm up and under your shirt and strokes the flat of your back, and you fear that your stubbornness will kill you one of these days if your shameful desires don’t do the job first.

**>your heart rate has spiked.**

Sunder isn’t an Outlier and hasn’t been retrofitted with a medical frame or upgraded with external bio-electrical sensors calibrated to monitor your body’s primary functions, so there’s no possible way he could know how hard your heart is pumping at what you’re thinking.

**>and your breathing has deepened.**

And what you’re thinking about is shameful.

“I’m still getting comfortable,” you manage to say. “I haven’t stretched for a while.”

Sunder is stroking your back as if the contact is recharging him.

**>perhaps I can help.**

“No, I think I’ll just stay here and not come any closer to you."

**>...you’re thinking about coming closer to me?**

Sunder’s voice is laced with humour, and you silently kick yourself for that lapse.

**>would you like that? Would you like to be closer to me?**

You don’t respond immediately. You’re not sure you can.

**>or perhaps you’ve changed your mind. Perhaps you’d like to leave my constricted world, where no-one can see or hear us. You would prefer to return to your uncomfortable desk and incompetent colleagues and the bright sharp pain of pointless bureaucracy. Or, perhaps,…**

Sunder’s hand slides down your back and tightens around your waist, four warm fingers stretching around your back and one hot thumb sliding down your stomach to the top of your pants.

**>perhaps you would like to give all of that up, even for a moment. Perhaps you would like to surrender control to someone who wants it, even for a moment. Perhaps you would like to enter my dark and comfortable world further, even for just a moment. Perhaps you want to be with me, for more than just a moment.**

**>do you want me?**

Blood is pulsing thickly in your ears and your body is feeling hotter. And wetter.

“No,” you say quickly. “I-...let’s continue as we were. With the interview. I don’t want anything more. Not yet. Not- not ever?”

A cloud of invisible warmth billows into you as re-circulated air is pumped out of the dark grills of his chest vents. His exhalation smells of amusement and arousal and feels like patience and promise.

**>perhaps another time.**

Sunder unpeels his fingers from your sticky skin and retracts his arm through the bar.

**>sometime soon?**

With his empty black eye sockets still locked onto you, Sunder puts two fingers into his mouth and licks your sweat from them.

You swallow dryly, and remind yourself that he’s done unspeakable things with those fingers and is disgusting. A monster. A terror. A scientific curiosity with the most fascinating frame you’ve ever seen and there’s a feeling in your stomach that you don’t want to have.

**>are you certain you do not require the services of a medic? Your elevated heart rate has not decreased.**

You lace your fingers together over your head. “Quite certain.”

**>you should see yourself.**

There is an undercurrent of amusement to Sunder’s tone as he speaks around his fingers. He slides them out of his mouth slowly, and doesn’t break the thin strands of energon that connect his fingertips to his tongue.

**>you are quite the sight.**

Sunder sucks his remaining fingers into his mouth slowly, and one by one licks them clean of your taste. They are his weapons and his soul, and the care with which he lavishes attention on them produces a small hard thump of envy in the base of your stomach.

Your eyes are locked onto those cursed and brilliant fingers as if they’ve been magnetized.

“But you are blind,” you tell him.

**>I am not. I see so much it’s overwhelming. You do not need eyes to see everything that counts and I see you. But you do not see yourself yet so come - come and sit next to me and examine what’s buried in your head. It may be unsettling, but I know you’ll like it.**

You may have more than strictly professional curiosity about engaging with him further, but you’re not stupid. You’re not going to risk doing anything that might put you under his alien control.

“No. You’re going to trick me so you can read my mind so no.”

**>...I do not read minds. I read memories. I expected so much better from you.**

You feel a gush of shame from the knowledge that he’s right and irritation and fear that you built a trap for yourself and walked right into it. “Sorry, I…” You’ve read every word ever written about him and know them all by heart and you know he can’t read each separate syllable in your head and--

**>I read memories. I unlock that which is not mine and expose it to the light so that it can be cleansed. So many of you have so much sin fermenting inside of you that it pains me. They are infected wounds that need to be drained and I want to help you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do for people and it’s what I want to do for you. Come and sit with me.**

\--and there’s a soft silent fizzing at the edges of your conscience and it’s getting so much harder to think straight. It’s like static from a radio hub abandoned to deep space. He’s unsettling you. He’s alien and dangerous and your brain is prioritizing what’s important and shutting down what isn’t and that’s why you’re feeling the way you are. He’s not controlling you. He’s not inside your head. You’re in control here.

You turn sharply and start to walk to the other side of the room just to see if you can, please say that you can.

You can.

You practically slump with relief.

You feel Sunder’s gaze on you as you prowl and pace and stretch your arms and legs and decide on a movement and carry it through just to be certain. You know that you are a visitor without a valid permit and are in danger of being tricked. You know that he is the gatekeeper locked behind a gate and only you have the key. He is the predator in the dark who is blessed with patience and cursed with hunger and he doesn’t say a word, he just waits. He waits and watches you.

Sunder is watching you.

You finally believe that you’re not under his control and calm yourself down. The room is hot and heavy and you’re bathed in sweat. And it must be your imagination, but you could swear the light in the room has dimmed. The shadows are darker, and deeper, and the soft blue glow from your datapad and digital watch seem stronger.

You stop moving and allow your eyes to adjust to the changing of the light.

Sunder is staring at you. He is black and red and motionless. He’s a mechanical murderer bathing in the dark and you want to swim in it with him. You rub the heels of your hands into your eyes again to try and remove that image. Your eyes feel gritty, as if you haven’t slept in days, but no matter how hard you rub them they’re not getting better. They’re not getting better.

They’re filling up with sand and glass and you can’t see straight, you cannot see straight and they’re not getting better.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Oh it’s started again, that noise. That noise that rhythm that horrible smooth clinking sound that’s drilling something into your head and laying down to sleep.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

You cannot see.

You’re blind.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Panic strangles you and you can’t breathe and everything is dark and you’re going to die and then there’s a pop and a small window of light hurtles towards you from a great distance and grows larger and larger and it reaches your face and doesn’t slow down and it hits you.

It hits you gently. You’re now looking through a bubble. A thick rippling haze has descended over your eyes and everything is wavy, like an oil slick illuminated by the dying sun.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

The bubble bursts.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

The viscous film that’s covering your eyes undulates and turns inwards and seeps into your eyeballs.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

It burrows down along your optic nerves to the center of your brain, cold and slimy and insidious, where it congeals and hardens and blossoms out along your neural pathways in painless fractals of light.

You look at Sunder with sad foreign eyes.

“How?”

It takes an eon for you to formulate this word.

“Why?”

Centuries have crawled by.

"Why have I been here so long?"

**>I have not done anything. And...no time at all has passed.**

Sunder's confusion almost seems real.

**>everything you’re experiencing and think that you're experiencing is coming from inside your own head. I have not done anything to you. These desires have always been inside you. They are a part of you. You have so very many of them and they are all yearning to be free.**

“...that is not an answer,” you say thickly.

Sunder smiles at your tenacity and answers you by holding up a finger. A long thin needle is sticking out of the end of it. He lowers his hand and holds onto the edge of his recharge slab and curls his fingers underneath it and moves his finger and

Clink. Tink. Clink.

That's the sound. That's what you've been hearing since you first set foot in this room. It’s him. He's been making it all along. He's been making it to control you.

His dish and eyes and brain and spark and t-cog may all be disabled or ruined but he still has his needles, he still has his needles. The reports said they’d been removed and their base hubs caved in and their neural connections deleted so why does he still have them? How does he still have them?

**>I have ruined myself and been ruined by others in turn. But some things cannot be destroyed. Some things that define us can only be delayed. They can only be delayed before they have a chance to see the light again.**

His needles grew back. They’re a core component of who he is and they grew back. No-one knew he could grow them back and now he’s using them to control you and they grew back and--

Clink. Tink. Clink.

You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have come. You shouldn't have come alone and shouldn’t have thought so highly of yourself and you shouldn’t have thought about him. You shouldn’t have thought and shouldn't think now and shouldn't have come here and--

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Your eyes feel like they’re melting into your face.

**>the why is because I want to help you.**

Sunder tilts his head. The action reminds you of an active volcano sitting unsteady upon a shifting tectonic plate.

**>I can no longer create memories inside someone or turn them inside out. The connections between my core components have been ruined beyond all repair and I am broken. My needles have become skeletons.**

He’s lying. He has to be. He must be. He is.

**>I am not. I cannot control someone remotely any more. But I can still extract and examine memories someone wishes to hide. I may be broken but I am not dead. I am alive, and I want you to be too.**

But you are alive. Your heart beats and your brain works and your lungs inflate and that's all that it means to be alive.

**>no. You hide so many things from yourself and bury them deeply. But they are restless, I can see them. They are straining to be free, I can feel them. Come inside. Unlock my cell and come inside.**

“But I do not have the key.” Your voice sounds thick and dreamlike in your ears.

**>yes you do. It’s in your head. You caught a glimpse of it on your supervisor’s datapad before he could pick it up. It’s a five second image buried under the debris of that day and you have it.**

Sunder looks at you and you feel nothing. Maybe he’s lying. Or tricking you. Or testing you. You don’t want to be responsible for setting him loose on the entire crew. You’re already responsible for so many things in your life and you don’t want another one added to the burden.

**>I won’t escape from here. I want to set you free.**

Without realising that it’s happened you find yourself at the door of Sunder’s cell, your fingers retreating from the keypad you’ve just punched a thirteen string alphanumeric code into. The manual override activates with a soft hum, and a green light appears around the border of the keypad.

You have no memory whatsoever of doing that. How did you do that? Sunder dug up the code from your memory, that’s how. It’s not possible you made a conscious decision to memorize the code when you saw it in your Supervisor’s office just in case you ever needed it, that doesn’t sound right. Except it does sound right. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing you’d do.

“The alarm will sound.” You wish you’d snapped those words out smugly and confidently but you didn’t. You soaked those words in concern and regret and whispered them to him.

**>no it won’t. You’ve already disabled it, remember?**

You open your mouth and fight the conflicting impulses to speak and stay silent. There are gaping holes in your memory. When? And why? You feel sick to your core, but--

\--

\--

But.

But there’s nothing you can do about any of this, is there. At least not right now. So why don’t you just let it go. Let go of the fear and unfairness and worry for just once in your life and worry about them another time. Let them go. Let them go and rest. They’ll still be there waiting for you. Just let them go.

**>come inside. Sit down. Allow me to free you.**

You heed these words of sensible advice echoing inside your head and reach out an arm towards the cell’s door. The air has become treacle and you move through it slowly because it’s thick. And sweet. And cloying. Sunder is so very close now. You watch yourself push on the door of his cell, and it’s as if a copy of yourself has peeled away from your physical body and you’re now on the outside looking in on what you’re doing. You don’t look scared. You don’t look brainwashed. Your eyes don’t look like hypnotic swirls of poisoned green vines rotating upon a cursed and brilliant sun.

You look steady. You look at peace. For the first time in a long time you look light and unburdened.

The door of Sunder’s cell swings silently inwards as you push it. You watch yourself take a step onto the borderline of his cell, your hand still gripped around the door. A neon light strip flickers. You take another step forward and your grip hardens around the bar. You’re framed in the doorway.

**>come inside. Sit down. Allow me to free you.**

Your heart is pumping hard but you’re breathing steadily. You don’t hear any clinking sounds, which means you’re under Sunder’s control now and he has no need to continue making them. Or, you think with a split second’s dangerous clarity, Sunder knows you no longer need the illusion of his sounds to choose to do what you’re doing. Your mind is stuffed with thick cotton and it’s just so difficult to think. Perhaps if you did sit down for a while it could help clear your head. Just for a little while.

**>come inside. Sit down. Allow yourself to be free.**

Your clenched hand trembles around the bar. Sunder is a mass of shapes and teeth and thin wisps of tainted steam. His recharge slab is so much closer than the chair at the other side of the room and so it makes sense to sit down on it just for a while. You unclench your hand from the bar, grip your datapad tighter, and step over his borderline and into his cell.

The lights flick off and the room is engulfed in darkness.

**>sit down next to me. Follow my voice. You will not get lost.**

You take a step forward, remembering where you saw him sitting last. A dark red imprint of him is etched onto your eyes, like the negative from a film strip. You take another step, and notice that the datapad in your hand is glowing a soft blue. You grip it hard, as if the touch of the old familiar can protect you against the unseen threats in the dark. You wade through shadows and black velvet space. Then you see him. A cliff of jagged plating and ruined eye sockets and a broken satellite crown has emerged in front of you.

Sunder shifts to the side, making room for you on his recharge slab. You sit down gingerly and rigidly at the very edge of the slab next to him. Your legs are clamped tightly together and your hand hurts from holding the softly glowing datapad.

**>easy. Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Much.**

You bend at the waist and lean away in horror from him where you sit, as if the movement could possibly offer you any chance of salvation.

**>I joke. I apologise. But.**

Sunder plucks the datapad from your hand and puts it on the slab up against the wall, turning it into a small blue beacon in the dark. Sunder sits you up straight and pushes you back, so that your spine is against the wall and your legs are stretched out in front of you.

Once he’s satisfied with your position he changes it. He shuffles you forward so that he has space to put an arm around your waist. The hand on that arm rests lightly on your knee. His face is now so close to yours that when you inhale you can taste him. He bleeds heat and corruption into the space between you, poisoning the air with himself for you to adapt to and depend upon. He squeezes your knee and continues to craft your new oxygen.

**>so tense. So repressed. So underappreciated. Let me help you with all three of your ills.**

Sunder rubs your knee with his thumb. He touches it even though he knows it’s making you feel worse not better, and when you look away that’s when he puts his other hand on your thigh that is nearest to him. You look down at the discarded datapad at your side. The rows of letters on the screen are a blur of lines and dots and if you keep looking at them you don’t have to look at anything else.

Sunder touches you slowly. He rubs your knee and caresses your leg, all along your inner thigh and back down again to your ankle, his metal fingers warm and smooth and confident that makes your skin tingle and you hate that you don’t hate this.

He is so magnificently patient with you.

His fingers finally brush the bottom of your underwear as they finish their ascent up and you tense immediately. His fingers crawl back down to your knee and then back up to your underwear and on every ascent they touch a little bit more for a little bit longer and it’s getting harder and harder to stay so rigid because a pleasant pressure is threatening to form between your legs and you don’t want that, so you make the decision to close them to fight back against him and--

\--and you didn’t realise that you’d spread them open in the first place.

And where are your jeans?

And shoes?

You don’t remember taking them off. You don’t know where they are. With a pulse of panic you lean forward to search for them in the dark but Sunder pushes you back and holds you in place with the large arm that’s around your waist and presses his sharp metal face up against yours and kisses you.

**>easy. Be still. Relax. There is nothing to worry about.**

He squeezes your knee in gentle reassurance with one hand and strokes the outside of your underwear with the other.

**>you’re with me now.**

He strokes you slowly. He strokes you with only his fingertips, up and down and up and down. The thin material you’re wearing is getting damp, and Sunder traces the outline of that stain with a finger that moves just a little faster and presses just a little harder.

You can’t help but push forward into his fingers to get more of that forbidden friction, and can still pretend that this is as far as things will go because there’s still a barrier between you both. Sunder caresses your weak shield lighter and you involuntarily buck forward and he kisses you again. You’re breathing deeply and his mouth is on your lips and he’s running his fingers up and down the front of your underwear and you’re more than damp now you’re wet.

And now that he knows you’ve realised this, Sunder slides a finger into the side of your underwear. You stiffen immediately and that’s when he adds two more fingers.

**>easy. Relax. But you no longer have to be still.**

Sunder strokes you with his fingers pressed together.

Their smooth flat undersides stroke from the bottom of your entrance all the way up to your clit where their pressure increases for a just a moment, just a second, before they slide back down. He doesn’t change his pace or rhythm as he strokes the outside of you, and your underwear bulges from his fingers as his hand moves along you again and again and again. A thin line of elastic is biting into your skin as your underwear extends from his ministrations. Your clit is slick and the pressure inside you is growing, and once again you can’t help but push forward into him to try and subdue it because you want more, god help you you want more and you’re leaking all over his fingers and you want more.

Sunder doesn’t give you any more.

He keeps stroking you with the flat of his fingers at the same frustrating pace. They don’t rub you any harder or dip inside you and you wonder what it would feel like to have them inside you, and that’s when you moan and Sunder slides his tongue into your mouth.

It’s big and wet and metallic but not disgusting and you wish it was disgusting, you wish you hadn’t adapted so quickly to the foreign taste of it but you have.

Sunder rubs your clit with proper pressure and oh god you’re moaning at that, moaning into his mouth with sounds that are muffled by the tongue that’s filling it and he’s smiling. He’s smiling at what he’s doing to you.

He’s smiling at how much you’re enjoying it.

You try to move away from him, to push back or turn your head away but you can’t. He holds you firmly and completely and slides his tongue in deeper and rubs you slowly and you’re leaking. From your mouth and in between your legs you’re leaking.

Sunder sucks on your tongue and strokes your knee and rubs your clit with his hand down your underwear and you gag and buck forward and--

He leans back and pulls his tongue out of your mouth and removes two of his fingers from your ruined underwear and you gasp. Thin strands of saliva and sweet energon are dripping from your lips. The longest one of his fingers is still trapped between your damp entrance and your underwear and you hear it rather than see it.

A needle has silently extended out of its tip.

You should close your legs. You should at least try and close your legs. But you can’t. And you don’t. You imagine the stiletto thin needle that somehow glints in the dark and wish you were more afraid of what he’s going to do next. Maybe you are, but you’re prevented from doing anything and so it doesn’t matter. Or maybe your desire for what he’s going to do is overriding your fear and you don’t want him to stop. Your blood pulses thickly and surely and you don’t know what to do except to submit to him, and it helps greatly that that’s all you want to do.

With the graceful precision only a world class surgeon could have, Sunder manipulates his needled finger and severs your underwear. He slices through it in predetermined places and never once nicks your skin. Once he’s finished, he retracts his needle back into his finger and your underwear collapses into pieces around you. His hand rests comfortably between your legs, a warm contrast to the coolness of his cell and the heat building up inside you.

**>you feel good. I like exploring you. Would you like to explore me?**

Yes and no and Yes.

You feel your lips part slightly in a non-answer. You hear a soft click, and see that Sunder has opened his interface panel and transformed it away. You wonder what it would sound like if it subconsciously opened. You wonder why this is your first thought.

Sunder takes one of your hands and puts it on the opening above where his spike is hidden.

You wonder if his panel could ever open against his will. What if he fought to keep it closed but was unable to resist the temptation of you and it parted despite his best attempts to remain in control?

You feel a hardness nudge up against your palm.

You wonder what you need to do to make that happen.

And before you get a chance to feel any more of him you’re on your back and Sunder is spreading your legs open and positioning himself between them and you jerk and try to grip the side of the slab but it’s too far away for you to reach and there’s no blanket or sheets to hold onto and you squeeze your eyes shut and clench your hands into fists and hope your nails aren’t so long they’ll draw blood that you--

**>easy. Be relaxed. You’re going to enjoy this.**

Sunder strokes your legs again.

He starts at your ankles and works his way slowly up to your knees and thighs with confident strokes of his fingers. You wish he wasn’t touching you so slowly. Or that his metal fingers were so warm and smooth. Or that he’d laid such a charge in you earlier that it’s ignited again already. His touch on your legs feels good and you wish that it didn’t. Your muscles are being drained of tension and you wish that they weren’t. Your eyes are still closed but now not as tightly and you wish they weren’t closed at all.

It’s impossible to tell how long he worships you like this.

You feel one of his hands leave your leg, and you hate that you feel uncomfortable from this loss of contact. It doesn’t feel right. The fact that you’ve thought this thought doesn’t feel right either. You crack open an eye to see what he’s doing and close it tightly and wish you’d never done so.

Sunder has wrapped that hand around his spike. It’s thick and long and leaking, and he’s moving it towards you.

**>easy. Relax.**

You’re ashamed and aroused and scared and desperate and the tip of his spike is already nudging at your entrance and this is too fast, he’s going too fast. You should try and stop this because you want him to stop this and your heart stutters and pounds and you know that you want him to continue and the choice is made for you because his spike is now inside you it’s gone inside you he’s actually doing this to you, this is actually happening.

You inhale sharply and hold your breath and try not to think about how wet you are and how much it’s going to hurt and--

**>easy. Be relaxed.**

Sunder pushes in another inch and stops.

**>this is happening.**

**>this is happening and it’s not going to stop.**

**>but it’s ok because I’ve got you.**

Sunder pushes his spike inside you another inch.

**>there. There we go. I’ve got you.**

He pushes a bit more into you.

**>you can take it.**

Another bit more.

You gasp out loud and your gasp is long. Your hot skin is bathed in sweat and the recharge slab is sticking to your back and he’s so hot and heavy inside you and you realise that he’s really not going to stop, he’s really not going to stop.

More thick spike enters you and it’s wide.

You cry out and writhe on the slab underneath him. He’s so wide and this is going to be too much, it’s all going to be too much. This is going to be too much and you won’t be able to take it and--

**>mmmmmm, yes. You can take it.**

More. More of him pushes into you.

**>it’s ok. It’s ok. Shhhhhhhhh. This is happening.**

**>here, let me help you.**

One of Sunder’s hands stays clamped around your waist to hold you in place, and he removes his other hand from his partially buried spike and cups your face with it. He strokes your cheek with his fingers and your chin with his thumb and you turn into that caress before you can help it.

Sunder slides his thumb onto your lower lip and gently pushes it between your lips and onto your tongue. He doesn’t force your mouth open any wider as he slides his thumb over your tongue and teeth and the inside of your mouth to coat it with your saliva. He removes his thumb and reaches down and puts it on your clit. He rubs circles into it with gentle pressure.

**>you can take this.**

More.

Sunder pushes more of himself inside you and it burns.

This is the most you’ve ever taken. The stretch is a sharp burn that pushes at your limits and it’s painful, but you know that if you spend a few minutes relaxing and getting used to what’s inside of you the pain will dull into acceptance and then it might feel good and you need him to stop. You need him to stop for a moment and let you adjust to what he's putting inside you because this is new and alien and you need him to stop for just a moment. You need him to stop. You need him to stop for just a moment so you can think and--

More.

**>you can take this. I know you can.**

More.

**>I know that you want to take this.**

The pleasure from having your clit massaged distracts you only slightly from the burn of being penetrated by him. It hurts. It hurts and it's too much and there's no possible way you can take all of him and this doesn’t feel good. Except a part of it does feel good. You don’t have the power to stop him and so you can't be blamed for what’s happening to you. He’s taken away your choice. He's freed you from that burden. You open your eyes and look down between your legs and watch another segment of living metal sink into you, and you moan in a way that you shouldn't have. You shouldn’t like this but you do and it’s too late to stop it now except it’s all too much, this is all far too much.

**>I know you want to be filled like this.**

Sunder increases the speed and pressure of the circles he’s rubbing into your clit and slowly sinks more of his spike into you.

More.

Your moans are broken gasps now as you fight to catch your breath.

**>I know you want to be taken beyond your limits. I know that you want someone like me to take you there. I’ve read your memories remember? All those times you recalled the fantasies you indulged in? Those are memories. And I read them when I touched you through the bars. You organics have such receptive skin that connects to every cell that you have. You have no circuit breakers or severed connections and you're an open book for me to read.**

More.

**>you are bold black letters upon a bone white page.**

More.

**>I know you want to be taken beyond your limits. I know that you want someone like me to take you there.**

You feel your vision begin to cloud over. You are cast adrift into a black sea, and tethered to your sense of self by the thinnest gossamer thread. Every defence you have is being penetrated with obscene ease.

**>so take it.**

More.

**>take all of me like I'm taking you.**

More.

M o r e

M o r e

m

o

r

e

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

-

-

\--

\--

\--

\---

\---

\----

\-----

\------

\--------

***********

***************

**********************

*******************************

********************************************

*******************************************************

It takes you a long time to realise that Sunder has finally hilted and stopped moving.

You didn’t think that torment would end; you thought that was your life now; you thought you'd died. How quickly you resigned yourself to that defeat though; how easily you submitted to what you think you didn’t want.

Bracing himself on the slab with one hand, Sunder leans over you and removes the rest of your clothes. His head and upper body fill your vision. He is your world now. He is hard plating and ruined angles and alien power shot through with a carved mouth of teeth that reaches back to his ears and never closes. Through the dim blue haze of the datapad at the very periphery of your vision you watch columns of steam crawl out of his facial vents to curl and twist in front of his empty sockets.

You are dead and the living dead and the most alive you've ever been.

Sunder eases himself down and wraps an arm under you and pulls you up into him, so that his chest spikes graze the bare skin of your chest and stomach. He could pierce your heart and kill you instantly if he wanted to.

Sunder puts his hot metal face on yours, adjusts his position so that a hand is cupping your head, and fucks you slowly in the dark.

There’s no escape. No way to tell the time. No possibility of thinking about anything other than how indescribably full you are. He's in your head and in your body and you don't know where you end and he begins and it’s all too much it’s all too much.

Sunder moves inside you slowly. He is shallow thrusts and leisurely grinding. He is dark red metal and flat sharp teeth that glint in the dark. He is the harbinger of your scorched earth policy. He is cleansing you with heat; burning all your sins; reducing you to ash. He will ruin you and claim you and rebuild you with the knowledge that you want nothing more than for him to do so.

You come quickly and silently. It's not from a build up of pleasure but from an excess of stimulation. It's a desperate shot to try and purge every foreign thing your body is working to cope with and it's only mildly successful.

Sunder notices the change in your body and stops moving. Your muscles have relaxed slightly and your breathing is beginning to stabilise. He tangles his fingers into your hair and kisses your neck. His malleable metal lips are dry and smooth and he kisses you with care.

It takes a while for you to relax further, and for your body to come to terms with what’s happening to it. A constant stream of warm air is venting from Sunder’s chest vents onto you and it’s pleasant. Maybe you could just lay here in the dark and close your eyes and sleep, and when you wake up none of this would have happened. Your body relaxes further around him. Sunder kisses your neck harder and then licks it. You hear yourself moan softly. You’ve survived. You’re still here. It wasn’t that bad. It aches but it doesn’t feel that bad.

He removes his hands from you and ensures you’re laying flat on your back. You’re both relieved and unsettled by the loss of contact and you squirm around him. Sunder looms over you and puts his thumb on your bottom lip again. You take it into your mouth without being prompted and suck it hard. You’ve been here before. This part is familiar. The next part will soon feel good and you need something good to happen.

**>more. Make it wetter.**

Sunder’s voice is wet with desire.

**>just like you, I want more. So coat it in your desire so I can give it back.**

You swirl your tongue over and around his thumb and soak it in your saliva. You transfer what you can of yourself to him and hope that it’s enough. When he’s satisfied with what you’ve given him, Sunder removes his thumb from your mouth and puts it back on your clit and rubs familiar circles into it, lazy and calm and confident and this time the pressure is perfect, this time you can enjoy it more.

The pleasure building up between your legs and in your stomach is now stronger than the pain of being impaled on his hot metal spike. It’s retreating from a sharp burning into a dull incessant throb and he’s helping you calibrate yourself around him. Still massaging faint vibrating circles into your clit, Sunder puts his other hand on your waist and holds you steady. You reach up with one of your hands to hold onto it. This time you have a faint idea of what to expect and are preparing yourself. This time it won’t come as a complete surprise.

This time Sunder fucks you properly.

He still fucks you slowly, but this time it’s with purpose. You can feel how much he’s wanted to do this. You can feel how much relief and pleasure he’s getting from holding you in place and fucking you without your explicit open consent. That thought sets a poisonous charge throughout your cells and you moan and hate yourself for it.

Sunder bends his head and kisses your neck and keeps fucking you properly, keeps massaging your clit, keeps giving you everything you’ve ever wanted but have never been able to ask for.

You’re soaking wet and violated and not fighting back and now it’s feeling good.

Now it’s feeling really good.

You’ve relaxed quicker and more completely than you thought you were capable of. But he’s controlling you, so of course you’ve relaxed into what he wants. But it’s also what you want, you know it is, why are you still lying to yourself. The human body is a biological marvel and capable of adapting to the most extreme situations regardless of desire. It’s inbuilt code that’s allowed your species to survive for so long and you want to survive this because you want to prove that he hasn’t broken you.

You want him to not stop because this is the most pleasure you’ve ever felt in your entire life.

It’s dark. And raw. And forbidden.

And you’re think you’re going to come any second now but you don’t, because Sunder’s sensed the shift in you and shifted gears himself. He’s rubbing you slower now so that he can make this last for as long as possible and you hate him and adore him for that.  
Sunder fucks you slowly and with purpose. He’s holding back and using only a fraction of his strength so that he doesn’t destroy you and you like that. You like that he’s not hurting you unnecessarily and that he’s suffering.

Sunder sinks his spike into you with thick slow thrusts all the way in and all the way out. He slides inside you as if you were a home, as if you were his home, and you’ve been waiting all along for him to turn the key and open the lock and sit down by the fireplace and never leave.

Sunder fucks you like he knows you. He angles his hips so that the round tip of his spike hits that particular spot inside you that you love, that you can’t reach with just your fingers and always needs something else to strike the target and now it’s him. His spike rubs it and that friction makes you moan, it makes you clench, and you’re screaming pleasure and relief to him for more and to never stop and he doesn’t. He does it to you again. Hits that one perfect spot again. Again and again and again.

More. You want more.

You want him to keep going and you want more. Through a cascading haze of pleasure you experience a perverse sense of pride that you can take all of him inside you. You know that not everyone could. Not everyone could make Sunder want to do the things he’s doing to you, only you can.

You scrabble for purchase and grip Sunder’s arm hard with both your hands and it’s hitting you now, you’re going to come now, and his spike isn’t stopping and he’s fucking you relentlessly and a wave of white hot bliss smacks you in the face and blinds you and you scream.

You clench down on his spike and cut grooves into your palms as you hold onto him and cry out. You ride it out on him and tell him with your body that you never want this to end.

You relax eventually.

It’s inevitable that you will.

Sunder hasn’t fucked you through your orgasm so that he can force another on you or so that he can reach his own. He stopped as soon as you finished and is waiting for you to recover. And that’s what you feel yourself doing. You feel tension along your body. It’s a low grade vibration but it isn’t coming from you, this isn’t how your body reacts, because you are not metal and wires and pistons overworked with the strain of holding something momentous back.

It’s Sunder.

He’s the one that’s vibrating. He’s vibrating because he’s trembling. And he’s trembling because he’s desperate for release. Your mechanical monstrosity is burning with frustration with how much he wants you and how much he doesn’t want to ruin you.

This is your fault. You’re making him feel like this. You clench around his spike and he m o a n s into your ear and fuck that feels good, all of that feels good, the feel of him buried inside you and his voice and repressed desires and you want to feel it all again so you clench again. Sunder moans again and grits his teeth and you pulse around him and wonder how far you can push him before he breaks.

You’re hyper aware of how wide your legs are spread open, and how deep he’s buried inside you, and how wide and thick he is, and how stretched open you are, and how hot his metal plating is when it’s pressed up against your skin like this.

His desire is bleeding through into you and he hasn’t come yet and he wants more. He wants more. He wants more of you and only you and you decide that you want to give it to him so you do.

Your small soft hands find his face in the dark.

You stroke his facial pipes. Your movements are hesitant at first but soon become bold. Your body is relaxed and suffused with feel good chemicals and a heavy blanket of pride and ego and recklessness and you stroke them slowly, up and down and up and down with just your fingertips and then your entire fingers, your whole hand, and you pump them slowly and drink in the noises that he’s leaking into your ear.

You chart the circumference of his satellite dish. Your hands start at 12 and set off clockwise and anti-clockwise and touch and cross and part and meet back up at the start and you do it all again. He may be the owner of your time but it’s still your time, and you’re going to do as you please with it and he can wait until you’re done.

You claim the surface of his dish. Your hands slide down its smooth curve until they reach the bottom and you move them and you don’t stop moving them. You splay out your fingers as wide as they'll go and you slide them over every part of him until it becomes familiar, until he becomes known, and you don’t stop moving until you’re satisfied.

You run your fingertips over the hard edges of his plating. You deploy all of your fingers and all of your thumbs, one at a time and then all at once. You send them out to explore his transformation seams that only your fingers can reach and they do, they crawl into the cracks and nestle down and plant invisible flags streaming with your banner.

You rub his shoulders. You feel the coils of his neck cabling. You stroke his chest spikes. You trace the outline of his unbroken autobot insignia and wonder if he still remembers that it’s there.

You map him in the dark.

Sunder vents heavily into your neck again and again and again and fights a never ending fight not to thrust hard into you and you like it. You like what you’re doing to him.

He pulls you tighter into him and you dip your fingers into his chest vents.

Hot air pumps out of them and you like it. His cursed boiler heart pumps inside him and you sink your fingers deeper into his vents and Sunder moans, he actually moans. You curl your fingers and stroke inside of him, and idly wonder if they’ll snap closed and carve your fingers off.

The air streaming out of Sunder grows hotter and heavier with moisture and your fingers are wet. You remove one hand from his vents and are rewarded with a different kind of groan from him, a groan you think is frustration mixed with pleasure but you don’t ask him what he wants or how he’s feeling because you’re putting those sticky damp fingers into your mouth to suck them clean just because you can.

Sunder jerks sharply in a rare loss of concentration. You think he looks alarmed in the subdued dead eyed way only he can but it’s fine, he didn’t hurt you. You know he can never hurt you now. You remove your fingers from your mouth and vents and caress his terrible face with them.

You wish your legs could spread wider. You wish he had more to give you. You wish for the impossible as you spread yourself wide open and pull his face down into yours so you can kiss him.

He reads you like you’re brilliant white letters crowning an ink black page and starts to fuck you again.

He moves in you with his face buried in your neck and his hands scrabbling for purchase on whatever’s closest. You wrap your arms around him as far as they will reach and whisper words of encouragement into his ear. The sounds your bodies make together are obscene.

And for the first time Sunder moves faster. It’s not much faster but he’s picked up his pace and is moving quicker now. He’s fucking you quicker. He’s fucking you like he means it. He’s fucking you like this might be his only chance and he never wants it to stop, he can’t cope with it ever stopping. You hold hard onto him hard and modulate your whispers into lowly spoken words of terrible promises of what you’ll do to him if only he’ll keep going, if only he’ll never stop.

Sunder hisses through clenched teeth and his perfect rhythm falters. You drip another lewd desire into his ear and lick it and his perfect rhythm fails.

He vents and moans and he’s there now he’s going to come and he does, he jerks and comes inside you and grinds up into you and against you and his sounds, his vibrations, his desperate metal heat makes you inhale sharply and arch up into him and you come for a third time with a shudder and a groan.

You don’t know how long you both lay together in a cocoon of tainted heat. You don’t want to move. You don’t want him to move. Your marvellous mech has ruined you for any other partner. You kiss his face and whisper these exact words to him. Sunder groans and buries his fingers in your hair and kisses your neck and doesn’t stop and doesn’t stop and doesn’t stop. You lightly caress the back of his head.

Maybe this was his buried desire that you’ve helped unearth and expose. His need for affection and comfort and a soft touch and the desire to be desired by someone that wants him exactly as he is and you do, someone help you you do.

Time has no meaning in the dark.

Eventually your body cools, and you shift with the beginnings of discomfort beneath him. Sunder eases himself up and out of you, and you let out a long hissing sound of regret and relief as he draws his spike out of you. A gush of fluid pours out and pools between your legs. You feel hollow and wish he was back inside you because now it’s all over and now you have to leave. Now you have to go back to what you so badly wanted to escape from.

With a fluid grace you didn’t expect for someone his size, Sunder gets to his feet and picks you up and cradles you. He is so incredibly careful in his movements and is a rock solid warmth against you. He is a death furnace and a murderer and has a mouth that never closes.

You hold onto him as he carries you out of the cell and into the larger room outside. You prepare to be put down somewhere in the dark, but Sunder positions you in his arms so that his face is between your legs and oh.

Sunder’s flat tongue licks your oversensitive skin and you grip him so hard that your knuckles turn white. He licks you clean and you whimper and it crawls to your thighs and back to between your legs and now it’s over your clit and he’s lapping at you. Slowly, and softly, and thoroughly, and slowly, and softly, and wetly he laps at you. You’re sure you’re clean by now but he’s not stopping and this is when you start to moan and hope he never does.

His tongue presses harder into you and you feel him smile against you. His head stops moving. And before you can apologise or plead he’s moving you. He’s not moving his tongue or mouth any more, he’s moving you.

He manhandles you up and down his mouth while his head stays still, and up and down and up and down you move along his tongue and that friction, that warmth, that wetness as he fucks his face with you has you curling into him and holding tight and gasping and you come for a fourth time with a drawn out moan and a bone deep sense of satisfaction.

Sunder finally lowers you to your unsteady feet, and the very second your toes touch the ground the lights flick back on.

They are white and bright and blinding.

You scrunch your eyes shut against them. Then you hear shuffling sounds. You hear them from a distance. Then you feel a series of sensations against your skin - metal and warmth and the smoothness of skin and the comforting roughness of material. Your body is covered in stages, and something pleasant strokes your face. Someone pleasant strokes your skin. You lean into it and it doesn’t leave you.

You are naked and clothed in the dark.

You decide that your vision can adjust to the brightness now and you crack one eye open. And then the other.

Sunder is sitting on his recharge slab behind a locked door in a cell that can’t be opened.

You blink and breathe and wonder what just happened. You glance down at yourself and see that you’re fully dressed. But your jeans are unbuckled and your shoes are untied. There’s a datapad in your hand. You look at your watch and see a number tick upwards. It’s not possible that amount of time has passed since you last looked at it, it’s just not possible. You wonder if it’s broken. You wonder if you imagined all of what just happened. You wonder if anything happened at all. What did you do? What did Sunder do?

What are you going to do now?

There’s a dull ache inside of you that’s not unpleasant. Maybe your backache, neckache and headache are finally getting better. Or maybe you’ve been exposed and accepted and fulfilled by someone who wanted the same thing. You just don’t know. Except that you do.

You gather your things and shakily head towards the room’s door. But before you enter the code for it to open, you look back at Sunder. He is watching you from his cell.

**>you do not have to go.**

You swallow and hesitate. You grip the datapad hard.

Clink.

Tink.

Clink.

**>you have always had the choice.**

The room snaps silently into darkness.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

**>and you’ve done nothing but make those choices.**

Your hand trembles against the light switch that you’ve turned off. You probably shouldn’t have done that. But you know the route to safety. And you know where freedom waits.

**>I am here for you.**

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Sunder reaches out through the bars to the keypad and you don’t try and stop him.

**>come inside. Sit down next to me.**

Clink. Tink. Clink.

He enters the code and unlocks his cell and opens the door wide for you. He is the night watchman of your secrets and the silent keeper of your memories. He will archive you and examine you at leisure and you will help him turn the page.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Sunder makes space on his slab for you. He puts a hand on the place you should occupy, which is not in front of him or behind him but beside him.

Clink. Tink. Clink.

Clink.

\---

Tink.

\---

Clink.

\---

\---

\---

Clink Tink Clink.

You finally stop tapping your datapad against the metal wall and hold it tightly in your hand.  
You’ve made your choice.  
All nerves and indecision have left you and you’ve made your choice.  
You crouch down and prop the datapad up against the door, its screen now glowing a soft persistent red. You've turned it into a warning beacon for that which you want to avoid. Because you know what you want now. You’ve always known. You know which direction you have to face and the speed in which you have to travel to get to where you want to go.

You turn around to look at Sunder watching you from his cell. He is heat and danger and magnificent open refuge that is yours if you choose to want it.

You kick off your shoes and walk forward in the dark.

* * *


End file.
